Thoughts on substrate

[DMasker]

So I am in the process of setting up my 180 gallon tank and I need some help as far as substrate goes. I know I am going with sand, because I have it in my 75 gallon and will never go back to gravel. I was thinking black sand might be a cool look. My inhabitants will be 1 fire eel and 1 CB ansorgii so far. My thinking is the black sand will bring out the eels red stripes more and not make the tank too bright for him. My 75 gallon has white sand and I don't think he likes how bright it is. My thinking is mostly though darker substrate, more contrast.

Thoughts?

Also, where is the best place to buy black sand? Good quality, but not too expensive.

 

[fatalfury]

Are you close to NYC?

this is kind of of topic to your post, but I was wondering how often do you have to add more sand. when cleaning the tank a lot of it gets vacuumed out no?

 

[DMasker]

Not so much, just kinda of swirl your hand around and since all the crap sits on top of the sand it gets lifted off without much sand if any being taken out. And I am about 3 hours from NYC.

 

[fatalfury]

ohh..i see hmm maybe ill consider changing to sand... I was thinking it will be too much to keep adding more sand in.

I was going to suggest some stores here in NYC but by the end of your trip you probably would end up spending more haha

 

[Malawi Monster]

I used black sand once thinking that it would look cool. Honestly I hated it....replaced it with aragonite as quickly as I could...not to mention my fish wouldnt go near it. But....if its the look you are after....go for it. I couldnt do black ever again!

 

[BlackShark11k]

Tile! Hehe...